This year was the Second Annual Misfit Thanksgiving. It consists of all my friends here in Louisville who don’t really have traditional Thanksgiving plans. Maybe their family is too far away, or they don’t celebrate the holiday, or they just don’t want the drama that comes along with it. Whatever the reason, those hungry “misfits” are always welcome at the Bailey household for dinner.

There’s only one drawback.

I’m exhausted.

Physically, mentally, and emotionally drained.

3 days of cooking and cleaning (and 72 deviled eggs) and I’m feeling a bit zombified.

Wednesday

I spent the majority of Wednesday doing all of the prep work. I got up when Cliff got up for work and immediately started cooking.

And didn’t stop until 10PM.

I have no idea how I ever cooked Thanksgiving dinner without taking off work the day before. By the time I was finished Wednesday night, all I had left was starting the crockpots and an hour(ish) of cooking the next day. Cliff came home around noon and helped me finish cleaning the house. I “taste tested” quite a bit throughout the day but the real gorge fest problem didn’t happen until today…more on that later.

Thursday

I weighed as soon as I woke up Thursday morning, feeling sure that I had gained all my weight back because I licked the spoon that I stirred everything the cheese ball with. How awesome did I feel when I was down 0.2 pounds! It was definitely the kick in the @$$ that I needed to get to the gym. Our gym was open until 4PM so we went ahead and knocked out 45 minutes on the elliptical before we did anything else.

It was the best decision I could have ever made.

Because it was things like this that were awaiting me at home:

I did snack a bit throughout the day, but not terribly so. However, 5 o’clock was the moment of truth.

Time to make a plate…

Of all my favorite foods…

In the middle of trying to lose 100 pounds…

I expected to lose all self control, to just start dumping scoops of mashed potatoes and corn casserole over every square inch of my plate. I just knew that I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from going back for seconds (possibly even thirds!) Everything was so delicious, how was I ever going to stop eating?!

Well..

I couldn’t even finish my first plate. I took one small scoop of everything, grabbed a bottle of water, and sat down to devour my dinner. I was huffing and puffing before I even finished my turkey. I had to throw away about 1/4 of the food on my plate. I did wind up going back later in the evening for a small piece of cake, but that was it.

I really hate to say this…but I was kind of disappointed that I couldn’t eat more. It. was. just. so. deliciou. I don’t really mean to toot my own horn and all that, but there are few things in the this world that I do better than cooking. I especially love to cook for a crowd. I only get to do it two, maybe three, times a year (and even less this year because of some seriously hard classes in school) so I really go all out at Thanksgiving. Everyone left stuffed and with their own, personal, pan of leftovers. All in all I would say it went pretty well.

Friday A.K.A “Today”

Ashley had to work today so she spent the night last night and I watched her daughter for the day. Most of the day was spent with me doing homework and her entertaining herself. I hated to be such a boring host but, unfortunately, my Networking teacher thought she would punish us all with three times the normal amount of homework…over a break. Since I’m going to be in Cincinnati all weekend, today was really the only day I had to finish it up. I was able to take a few breaks and played Barbies, made some music videos, and made a card for her Mom when she came by the house for lunch.

I made it through the entire day without snacking on anything. I had toast for breakfast, an egg white and turkey sausage muffin for lunch, and nothing but water to drink. I was so incredibly proud of myself.

Until around 6 tonight.

And then, completely out of nowhere, I lost all control of myself.

Luckily, I had sent home over 90% of the leftovers.

Unluckily, the 10%(ish) that I had left were my weaknesses.

I ate I have absolutely no idea way too much beer bread dipped in this amazing (I.E. full fat) sour cream and fiesta ranch dip. I don’t even want to think about how many cookies I ate.

Not to mention dinner…which consisted of a frozen pizza, chips, and cucumbers drenched in Zesty Italian dressing (at least I had a veggie!!!)

However, I refuse to look at tonight as a failure. Yes, I overdid it. Yes, I’ll probably see the damage on this week’s weigh in. No, I don’t regret it. Things could have been A LOT worse.

Back on the horse tomorrow. I have plenty of healthy(ish) snacks for the trip and I’ve already proved that I can still stay on plan while I’m out of town. I’ll get plenty of activity in with all the shopping, but I still plan on exercising while I’m there. I’m sure I’ll be able to spare 45 minutes at some point.

Believe it or not, I still haven’t packed, so I’m going to go take care of that. Sorry for the gaps in posting this week, but it’s been super busy around here (with no end in sight. Maybe next year, we’ll see.)

Happy Thanksgiving!

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” — Oprah Winfrey